Archive for December, 2009

I admit it I procrastinate. Some time ago I was asked if I would model this beastie and so I said fine.. It *is* a really cool design and John Eaves is without question one of the foremost designers on the planet for this sort of thing, so I thought it would be kinda fun, but… I put it off.

No more, it’s started now and fromt ime to time I’ll update it’s progress here.

Share this:

Like this:

Rhyme and Reason talk to Milo, from: The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster

One thing you can be certain of in this day and age is that there is no rhyme or reason to anything. In fact it’s so convoluted that things we all grew up with as solid fact and truth are no longer the case, no this is not some strange alternate reality (although sometimes I wish it were) nor is it some whacked out work of fiction, this is everyday life…

Take for example customer service. At some point in the last 10 years, customer service died. It used to be the customer was always right, now, it’s “Hello, what did you do wrong, and we don’t’ cover that” or “We’re sorry it will be 8-10 months before we can address your issue, we know we have your money but we want more” Even long standing companies like Apple, who used to have customer service that was unparalleled in modern times, has fallen by the wayside, hiring barely literate people who would rather laugh at your problems than assist. A sad footnote to a world already in upheaval over major issues.

Secondly, the next example is a bit more alarming, we used to in the United States take a certain amount of pride in the fact that we could say or write or produce anything so long as it did not violate any laws. Freedom of Speech, assembly and to question, but that too has seen a decline in recent years, and especially since we had our 2008 elections. It seems that if you are critical of our President now, you are either a) a racist that needs to be hung or b) unpatriotic and need to be hung. Gone are the days when we could question our leaders integrity or competence, now it’s blindly follow what they say or you end up disappearing or worse, your life is made a living hell by those in the know.

Whether or not we can overcome the trends is yet to be seen, but if we as a species don’t’ do something, we are indeed destined to become self fulfilling prophecy and most likely be our own demise.

Share this:

Like this:

Don’t get me wrong the servie was great until a few months ago when they “upgraded” their digital boxes. Then the strange things started happening. I am certainly not a huge hockey fan, yes I loved going to Indians (Springfield MA) games when I was in HS and I still like the occasional Montreal Canadians game, but not enough to pay 100+ dollars for NHL Center Ice, and when it was found, along with porn channels being billed to the service, it was a quick call to Verizon, who now claimed the bill was upwards of 900 dollars, and when we ent down the list i was able to say no no no no no to 99.9% of the stuff. OK fine, that solved that, or so I thought…..

What do you want us to do about it, we don’t give refunds, especially if you are the retard that doesn’t know how to lock your box.

Well, the box was locked until their “upgrade” then it seems to have lost it’s lock, and any Tom, Dick or Harry could just pop on and order Playboy at Night.. I protested the charges, they said “Tough” and that’s where it was left for now…

I wonder what deals their competitors have right now hmmmm.

Share this:

Like this:

Still no replacementBlu-ray even though i was assured that i’d have one by the end of business on Wednesday. No contact back on any inquiries and no hope of getting them to honor their products. Remember the days that it used to be if a product was less than 30 days old places would cheerfully replace it? Not Funai, they seem to think people thrive on 8-10 months without thier purchases.

Well I for one am sick of this kind of blatent money-grabbing scam by companies that prey on people looking for a bargain. Instead of supporting this type of behavior we should be punishing it, by boycotting as consumers and by criminal penalties by the government. No more should be the mantra we all chant as we no longer fund this clearly criminal enterprise, as they insist on payment oup front for service on their defective crap, we should demand that we have our stuff fixed in a timely fashion. 8-10 months implies tha they have so many repairs that they cannot keep up, which in turn implies that they make crap.

Filed a formal complaint with our state AG and the BBB yesterday, lets see if they ignore it now.

Share this:

Like this:

Finally after weeks of seeing ice, and dustings, the little area of the Northeast that I live in is getting, you guessed it SIGNIFICANT SNOWFALL!!!!

Nothing compares to the smell of the air while it’s snowing, or the beauty of it as it falls, and after as it glistens in the sun. Shovelling on the other hand, well that’s a different argument, right now I’m just looking forward to watching the flakes fall and drinking piping hot cocoa….

Share this:

Like this:

There are few things in this life that I really care about.. Family and Friends, that’s about it, and I may get hot tempered at companies that are nothing but hot air promising the world and delivering shit, but in the end mess with my family or my friends and suffer the wrath of me.

Long story short, preparing a lawsuit against a service agency and the county for neglect, BOOM what happens? All of a sudden we’re fighting off CPS allegations, and in the middle of it all, it’s really just a clever, but really sick move on the part of the other side to try and get their hands on documentation that is needed to prove a neglect case against them. Ok, so thought it was over, and all would be nice for the holidays? NO WAY!!!! They are threatening court action and other things to a) keep us put in a place we don’t really want to be and have publicly stated that we don’t want to be, and b) get their hands on information that they would not normally be entitled to until the LEGAL discovery stage of a trial. It’s called, intimidation and coersion and it should be illegal, wait it is..

Do these people think about the level of stress they are causing (better yet are they prepared to answer for the whole time they sat by and did nothing when everyone was pleading with them for help?) No the sinister motive here is a simple one, cover each others asses as long as they can and hope this will go away if we go away.

Like this:

Allrighty… Before I begin let me just say I’m not going to burst into any foul language here, but heaven knows I really, really want to, but, you know, these people really need to all be placed in a small room together and be forced to help each other out to escape, maybe then, and only then would they understand the anguish they cause other people.

Chase Bank is by far the biggest offender of all the banks I’ve had the displeasure of dealing with (I don’t have a “bank account” for the reasons I’m about to mention) they hide behind rules and regulations that make little to no sense, and could only be understood by someone with a PhD in babble. Take for instance if you are paid by a check, used ot be that you could walk into the issuing bank and cash your check, WRONG!!! Chase, makes you sit there while they tell you 500 reasons why they can’t cash it. Which brings me to today’s run in. We have two branches here in the village, one was willing to help but their counting machine was horribly broken, I could see the thing so I knew the poor girl wasn’t lying to me, so they suggested I go to the other branch down the road, which was bigger and has more staff. So I did.. I wish I hadn’t because it just made my foul mood that much more foul. First I got told that i had to open an account in order to cash in my stack of 1 dollar bills for larger notes. When I said I didn’t really want to open an account today, I just wanted to cash in my bills to go shopping (Stores around these here parts are getting worse at accepting 1’s) the girl laughed at me, proceeded to call me a terrorist (I believe the exact words were “Only a terrorist or someone involved in a terrorist activity would not wish to open an account”) and then asked if I had any brain cells at all, this was “New York for gods sake, we don’t have to do anything we don’t want to do, and that includes changing money”

It’s a bank yes or no? Banks deal in cash yes or no? Cash is cash yes or no?

The final response from her and several other banks in the area was that they had the means to assist but they didn’t have to so they weren’t going to. Which brings me to my final point on the matter:

We as Americans have become the land of the “NO” instead of a people that care about each other and will assist anyone. When along the line did it become more important to find 100 ways to tell someone no on something simple, than to just see the situation and assist if you could.

Since there is no Federal Regulation stating that they cannot, it’s a crime in my eyes that they hide behind obscure laws that have nothing to do with the transaction. A 1 dollar bill or 300 1 dollar bills isn’t gonna hurt you.